Sunday, March 15, 2009

Inside Baseball

The other day we found ourselves in a waiting room where there were two pals, about 65 years old, talking. They were both professional baseball scouts. One of them had Hall of Famers to his credit.

It has been a while since we had a strong personal interest in professional baseball. The interest we had fell away after our younger years: Rather than watching, we prefer the sports in which we actually engage and if we don’t have to get two teams together to get started so much the better. Still, there is a certain amount of fascination listening to “inside baseball” and our ears perked up all the more when the chat of these two fellows touched upon one of our Noticing New York urban planning concerns, the financing of Yankee Stadium.

We’ve written before about the value of parking spaces at Yankee Stadium and Mayor Bloomberg’s misplaced focus in negotiating the terms of the public financing of Yankee Stadium. Specifically:

. . . . the Bloomberg administration paid a very, very high price for a “free” luxury suite for its own use at Yankee Stadium including, but not limited to, giving the Yankees 250 parking spaces in exchange.

About Me

NOTICING NEW YORK & NATIONAL NOTICE are both independent entities managed by Michael D. D. White of Hop-Skip Enterprises. Michael D. D. White is an attorney, urban planner and former government public finance and development official. *** Noticing New York covers New York development and associated politics. National Notice covers national policy and economic issues *** Contact: MichaelDDWhite(at)gmail.com